Chapter 18
Eliza
I wasn’t supposed to meet Jasper at the shooting range for another twenty minutes.
It was time I should have used to continue planting in the greenhouse, but I felt dirty and smelly, and if I was going to be in proximity of Jasper at the shooting range, then I needed to shower, so I took off early and headed up to my room.
Or I was going to.
Until I realized that Jasper was probably already out there waiting for me, which meant I had a few minutes to check another room before I quickly showered and hurried out to meet him.
I’d been trying to sneak around the manor when no one was paying attention to take a look through some of the older rooms that I didn’t think were even used anymore.
I had only made my way through three rooms, and it had been a major disappointment.
One had been completely empty, not even curtains, and the other two were used as some sort of ammo-making space.
Empty shell casings—at least that’s what I assumed they were—littered the butcher block countertops.
Dark-stained wooden shelves lined the back walls, which were all filled with small boxes.
Several large gun safes were in both rooms. It had smelled like sulfur, sharp wood, and metal with a hint of paper, like what a new instruction pamphlet smells like.
I had felt weird and out of place and after quickly looking through them for anything that could be useful and finding nothing, I left.
I was too busy, and it was too dangerous to do more than a room here and there.
I didn’t know what I was looking for. Something of Hester’s or Darius’s—or even Jasper’s—that told me something solid about what had happened.
I kept the locket in my pocket or in my palm in the hopes Hester would help guide me. So far nothing.
Before I left the conservatory, I saw movement around the corner going toward the front of the house.
Sowerby—and he was moving quickly. The gun range was on the other side of the property.
Whatever he was doing, it wasn’t in the main house and that was all the go-ahead I needed.
Sowerby had grown more friendly with me, but there was always this underlying hardness to him that I never fully trusted.
If he caught me snooping, it would be bad. Worse than if Jasper got me…maybe.
My feet moved quickly, the weight on the balls of my feet to keep my steps silent.
I didn’t have time to make it all the way across the house, so I took a sharp left, away from the more-used spaces and into spaces I hadn’t seen before, closer to Jasper’s office.
I really needed to look through there, but I still wasn’t ballsy enough to attempt that, which was a shame, because that was probably my best bet for finding information.
I passed Jasper’s office and picked a random door.
I pressed my ear against it to listen. Silence.
I tested the doorknob, and it opened into a surprisingly small room that reminded me of a mudroom that looked to not be in use.
The inside didn’t fit the aesthetic of the rest of the house; even the walls looked older and more worn, with dents and scratches.
The soles of my shoes tapped the floor, and I realized it was concrete covered in stains.
The air was musty and cold with the same scent as an old basement.
It was dark with no windows. I pulled my phone out and pulled up the flashlight, so I could close the door behind me and still see inside of the near dark room.
The dim spotlight glinted on something, and I froze, the organ in my chest filling my throat and blocking the flow of air.
Just a doorknob. I let out a sigh and moved toward the door a few steps down in the back of the room as I glanced at the time on my phone.
This better be worth it. I was going to have to take the fastest shower of my life and leave my hair wet.
As I got closer to the door, I heard it.
Muffled cries. Thuds. Grunts. Crying. Centipedes of goose bumps skittered across my skin.
Someone was in there, behind the door, and they were in pain—a lot of pain by the sounds of it.
The blood drained from my face into my toes as I looked back at the dark stains that patterned the cement floor. Blood.
Oh my god.
Someone was being held captive. In Blackwood Manor.
My hand covered my mouth with jerking, shaking movements. I gripped the round knob, feeling my arms and legs vibrate and tremble in near hysteria.
I had to open it.
Thuds shook the door from the other side.
More screams. Begging. I couldn’t make out the words, but I didn’t need to—the pleas were a sound I’d never forget.
Every hair on my body stood on end as panic vibrated through me.
My breathing was heavy and ragged, ricocheting off the metal door and back into my face, warming it with the scent of the coffee I’d finished before leaving the conservatory. I turned the knob and opened the door.
My scream lodged in my throat as it tried to escape, but my hands clapped over my mouth.
A black-haired man blanketed in a sheen of sweat was on his knees, hunched over himself on the floor, his clothes soaked in blood and covered in yellow and brown stains.
With Jasper looming over him with a pistol in his hand.
Both their eyes snapped to mine.
“Eliza,” Jasper said, surprised.
“Help me! Please! He’s going to kill me, please! He’s a fucking psycho!” the man on the ground shouted at me desperately.
“Oh my god” was all that came out.
A raw darkness dripped off Jasper. He looked like a monster, but I couldn’t figure out why. He was calm and controlled like always. But then I saw: it was his eyes. They looked completely unhinged.
“Help me! Before he—”
I flinched and slapped my hands over my ears as the loud gunshot tore through the room and echoed in my head.
The man crumpled to the floor. His silence was louder than any sound I’d ever heard.
I locked eyes with Jasper and tried to run to the door but not before a strong hand gripped my arm and stopped me.
“Wait, Eliza,” Jasper commanded.
I went ballistic, kicking and clawing at him until I freed myself and made it to the door. I pulled it open, and it slammed closed. Jasper moved in front of it, his face cold. It was terrifying. I glanced at the man on the floor. It looked like he was still moving a little.
My arm pulled back to hit Jasper in the balls, the only advantage I thought I might possibly have over him, but his hand gripped my wrist with bruising force, blocking my hit. His light chuckle made my eyes widen.
“Maybe I shouldn’t be so worried about you protecting yourself.”
Words were somewhere in the back of my head, but they were out of my reach. I tried to shove off him and move myself backward, but it only made him pull me firmer against him.
“This looks pretty bad, huh?” he said, a lightness in his tone.
My eyes bugged out of my head as I trembled.
He took in every detail of my face, reading me. “You’re pretty scared of me right now.”
His hands fell from my arms before he grabbed my hand, and I felt warm steel in my palm. He’d put the gun in my hand. Instinctively I clutched it and pointed it at his stomach with shaking arms.
“Any better?” he asked.
“What the fuck is happening?” The choppy words tumbled from my lips.
“Security found him crawling through a window. It’s more likely that he was trying to get a story than any valuables or”—his eyes turned fiery and slowly raked over my body—“anything else.”
“He broke in?”
He nodded.
“The security pings,” I mumbled. I glanced back at the man. It was terrifying to think he’d broken into a space so heavily guarded—a space that had felt so safe and private. It rattled me. “So—so you killed him?”
He crinkled his face in disappointment. “I didn’t kill him.”
“You shot him!” I cried.
“It’s a good thing we’re headed to the gun range, so you can learn how to properly shoot someone if you think a shot to the knee is going to kill a man. He’s just passed out; he’ll be back to screaming any minute.”
“What? I’m not going to the gun range with you!”
He took a step into me, the gun shifting against his abs, angled at the wall when he pushed hard against it and me.
“Of course you are. Look at how you’re holding that.
You’re going to get someone killed,” he said as he removed the gun from my hands in one swift motion and took my arm, gently this time as he guided me out the door.
A few minutes later—though I couldn’t be sure how many, but I was sure that I was in some kind of shock—I stood in one of the five lanes of the gun range.
It was silent save for the distant caw of a few crows.
The reinforced wall built into the cliffside in front of me had targets placed at varying distances along the long, sleek lane.
It was mostly outside, but the space had modern stone shelters and coverings that matched the main house—only these felt more tactical.
Everything smelled like gun oil and leather.
It was gritty and clean all at once. The gun—the same gun that Jasper had used on the intruder—was heavy in my hands.
Jasper was right behind me being far too quiet.